WASHINGTON, D.C. – Darling, clear your calendars and lock your emotional support safes, because the Democratic National Committee just dropped the most audacious rebrand since “global warming” became “climate change” and then “climate emergency” and then “that thing that makes Beyoncé sweat on stage.”

In a midnight vote that lit up group chats from Dupont Circle to Martha’s Vineyard, the DNC has officially retired the tired, colonial, frankly problematic term “burglary” and replaced it with the empowering, borderless, fashion-forward phrase “Undocumented Borrowing.”

Sources inside the room (who spoke on condition of anonymity because their AirPods were still charging) say the decision came after a three-hour listening session titled “Is Ownership Even Serving Us Right Now?” chaired by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wearing what can only be described as Balenciaga meets Bolshevik.“

The word ‘burglary’ centers the trauma of the homeowner,” AOC explained while sipping an oat-milk cortado the size of a legislative filibuster. “We’re simply decolonizing the lexicon. Borrowing is caring. The ‘undocumented’ part just means the paperwork is still in committee.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed the shift at Thursday’s briefing, casually adjusting a diamond tennis bracelet that definitely wasn’t there yesterday. “Look, if a stranger enters your home at 3 a.m. and leaves with your PlayStation 6, your grandmother’s heirloom pearls, and that leftover Popeyes in the fridge, that’s not theft. That’s an unscheduled wealth audit with a side of spicy.”

Early adopters are already living the vibe. In San Francisco, where the trend always lands first, residents report waking up to find their Ring doorbells politely disabled and handwritten thank-you notes that read, “Appreciate the undocumented borrow of your MacBook Pro and your entire sneaker wall. Will circle back when Mercury is out of retrograde. – xoxo A Neighbor.”

Silicon Valley is, naturally, three steps ahead. Start-up founders have launched “BorrowBnB,” an app that matches “temporary resource guardians” with “over-housed asset custodians.” Seed round: $420 million. Lead investor: someone who definitely still has both of your AirPods cases.When reached for comment, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer simply opened his wallet, watched three moths and a Ben Franklin fly out, and whispered, “I’ve been undocumented-borrowed so many times I qualify for DACA at this point.”

But the cultural momentum is undeniable. TikTok is flooded with “Undocumented Borrowing Haul” videos (GRWM while I redistribute my apartment complex edition). Vogue has already declared ski masks the accessory of 2026, ideally paired with a structured tote that screams “I’m just holding this Louis Vuitton for a friend who doesn’t technically exist.”

As your girl on the ground translating policy into high drama, I’m calling it now: “Undocumented Borrowing” is the quiet luxury of civil disobedience. It’s giving Robin Hood if Robin Hood had a Substack and a blue check.

So next time you hear that window creak at 2 a.m., don’t reach for the baseball bat, bestie. Strike a pose, smile for the Ring camera that’s probably already in the Uber, and whisper: “Take what you need, king. Representation matters.”

The future isn’t coming. It’s being borrowed without asking, and it’s never looked this chic.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In what multiple high-level sources are describing as “the most 2025 story of 2025,” conservative commentator and noted moon-theology skeptic Candace Owens was reportedly caught Tuesday evening in her Virginia driveway attempting to perform a full Latin exorcism on her own shadow.

Eyewitnesses — three Uber Eats drivers and one extremely confused golden retriever — say Owens emerged from her home at approximately 9:47 p.m. wearing a tactical turtleneck, night-vision goggles flipped upward like discount aviators, and what appeared to be a Bed Bath & Beyond bathrobe fashioned into a makeshift clerical stole. She was clutching a limited-edition PragerU-branded squirt bottle filled with what she later described to this reporter as “Florida water, holy water, and a dash of Liquid I.V. because hydration is still important during spiritual warfare.”

According to leaked Ring-camera footage obtained exclusively by The Critical Chronicle (after I traded a guy in a Guy Fawkes mask two IPAs and a Panera gift card), Owens can be heard shouting in what scholars have confirmed is Latin spoken with a noticeable Atlanta inflection: “Exorcizamus te, umbra suspecta! By the power vested in me by the 1776 Commission and this here essential-oils diffuser shaped like the Constitution, I cast thee out!”

The shadow, sources say, did not comply.

Neighbors report the incident began shortly after Owens discovered a cryptic direct message on an undisclosed platform that read only: “Your shadow has been acting weird lately.” The message was sent from an account with the handle @RealHuman1776 and a profile picture of a bald eagle wearing Oakley blades. Owens immediately interpreted this as proof of a deep-state infiltration at the quantum level.“

She kept yelling that the shadow was ‘moving slightly out of sync with solar noon,’” said next-door neighbor Cheryl K., who asked that her last name be withheld because she’s trying to sell her house. “Honestly, I thought it was another TikTok trend until she started throwing handfuls of Himalayan pink salt at the asphalt like she was seasoning I-95.”Reached for comment on the front porch of a Chick-fil-A (her team insisted on a “neutral, values-aligned location”), Owens remained defiant. “Look, Max — can I call you Max? — shadows have been above the law for too long. Mine started lingering two, maybe three millimeters longer than physically explicable after the 2024 election. That’s not normal. That’s Klaus Schwab in the fourth dimension.”

When pressed on whether she had considered simpler explanations — cloud cover, new driveway lighting, basic trigonometry — Owens narrowed her eyes and whispered, “That’s exactly what a compromised silhouette would say.”

Inside sources within Owens’ inner circle, speaking on condition of anonymity because they still want Christmas cards, reveal that this is merely the latest escalation in what aides are calling “Phase Three of the Grievance Spiral.” Phase One reportedly involved rage-tweeting at her own reflection for “liberal eyebrows.” Phase Two peaked when she accused her Roomba of being a CIA listening device and replaced it with a shop-vac duct-taped to a King James Bible.

As of press time, Owens has launched a GoFundMe titled “Operation Sunlight Freedom” seeking $87,000 for a industrial-grade spotlight array, a private astronomer, and “one of those big church bells from the movies — you know, for morale.” The campaign has already raised $400,000, mostly from donors who think it’s performance art but hope it isn’t.

This reporter attempted to confront the shadow directly for comment. It declined to speak on the record but did give me what felt like a condescending side-eye when I stepped on it.

More as this develops. Or doesn’t. Hard to tell with shadows these days.

WASHINGTON—In what sources close to the situation are calling “the most unnecessary use of grant money since the Federal Tequila-Proof Congress Desk Initiative,” researchers at the little-known but heavily funded D.C. Institute for Basic Object Comparison released a peer-reviewed paper Tuesday concluding that Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-GA) registers 47% lower on the Standardized Sentience Index than a common 16-ounce canvas bag of Stanley contractors’ hammers purchased at retail price from Home Depot.

The 184-page report, titled “When Tools Outthink the Tool-Users: A Longitudinal Study,” employed cutting-edge metrics including response time to basic shapes, ability to identify the business end of a gavel, and whether the subject instinctively tries to impeach the researcher for asking what two plus two equals.

Lead author Dr. Evelyn Comparator told me over oat-milk lattes at a Dupont Circle café that the results were, frankly, “humbling for the entire control group.”
“We started with reasonable benchmarks,” she explained, adjusting her glasses with the weary gravitas of a woman who has seen things. “A vending machine. A moderately concussed raccoon. Even one of those Roomba vacuums that just spins in circles and cries. The bag of hammers cleared every hurdle. It never once accused us of white supremacy for asking it to point to the triangle.”

Sources inside the Crockett office—who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were still trying to figure out how to work the telephone—pushed back weakly, insisting the congresswoman “identifies as sentient” and that any suggestion otherwise constitutes “literal violence against Black excellence, also the 14th Amendment or something.”

When reached for comment in the Capitol hallways, Rep. Crockett reportedly squinted at this reporter for twelve full seconds, asked if “Max Quill” was a colonizer name, then attempted to serve me with articles of impeachment hand-written in purple crayon. The document was later determined to be a Denny’s kids’ menu with the word “TREASON” scrawled next to the smiling stack of pancakes.

Perhaps the most damning data point: during cognitive load testing, the bag of hammers successfully remained silent for the entire 45-minute interview, while Rep. Crockett used the phrase “that’s above my pay grade” seventeen times, “y’all play too much” nine times, and threatened to “whip out my lash” when asked to define the word “lash.”

Political analysts are already gaming out the implications.
“If this holds,” said one anonymous senior Democratic strategist who only agreed to meet me in a dimly lit REI parking garage, “we may have to rethink our entire 2026 messaging strategy. Up until now we assumed the floor was Joe Biden falling asleep mid-sentence. Turns out the floor has a basement.”

Perhaps sensing the shifting winds, Speaker Mike Johnson quietly introduced legislation Wednesday that would replace congressional IQ requirements with “vibes-based certification.” The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, and—because nothing matters anymore—the bag of hammers, which reportedly signed using an inked claw.

As of press time, Rep. Crockett was holding a press conference to announce she will introduce counter-legislation banning all tools that “refuse to center marginalized voices.” When informed that hammers lack the capacity for speech, she nodded sagely and replied, “Exactly. Silence is violence.”

More as this story develops, assuming any of us still possess the cognitive bandwidth to follow it.